


Guardian Devil

by BM Vagaybond (MintSharpie)



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter/Funhaus RPF
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Child Abuse, Fake AH Crew, Family, Gen, Harm to Children, Revenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-01
Updated: 2016-02-02
Packaged: 2018-05-17 13:18:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,413
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5871118
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MintSharpie/pseuds/BM%20Vagaybond
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are some lines even the Vagabond won't cross. Hurting kids is one of them, and God can't help anyone he catches doing it...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

“You just don’t get it, do you?” A juicy thump; a groan. “This is the _second time_ , Chris. Ramsey already has a bullet with your name on it…”

“N- no! No, please, I have a family, I- _ack_ …!”

Mary dared to peek a little farther over the edge of the landing. She was just in time to see a huge shape bend down and grasp her father by the throat to pull him upright. A terrible thrill made her shiver as the light from the porch struck the figure’s face – or lack of one. A fearsome black skull grinned down at its captive like a hyena at its prey.

“Then you’d better have his money. Twenty-four hours. You know the place.”

Her father doubled over around the lightning-fast fist suddenly planted in his solar plexus. The assailant let him down to the floor again, regarding him contemptuously. Mary stared, wide-eyed, drinking in every detail her six-year-old brain could store before the man turned and walked away. Blue and black leather glinted; then the front door closed soundlessly behind him.

It took Chris a while to find his feet. Mary continued to watch as long as was safe, relishing the pain on his face. When it morphed into fury, she silently fled to her bedroom; _she_ didn’t want a beating like that. Her back still hurt from last time.

But she only managed to put it off til morning. Her mother tried to shield her, as always; and as always, it only resulted in bruises for them both. Fortunately Chris left the house early, far earlier than he needed to if he were going straight to open the store. Mary guessed it had something to do with the skull man of the night before.

The next day was a good day. Her dad called her mom “Angelica” instead of “bitch,” took them to the movies, and bought them ice cream. On Sunday morning he smiled and talked with the other grown-ups after church, and made proud noises over the picture of Jesus that Mary had drawn in Sunday school.

But when he patted her on the back, it stung.

Things got worse again during the week. It came to a head on Thursday: he closed early, came home in a rage, and left again after reminding both Mary and Angelica how very fragile the drinking glasses were. Mary sat like a stone, face hard and cheeks dry, while her mother sobbed. She was back at the top of the stairs, watching skull-headed karma at work. A small smile played on her lips.

The cycle went on like that for a month. Then, one day, it broke.

* * *

 

Mary couldn’t see over the counter, and her mother’s argument with the teller was uninteresting. Something about overdrawing? That was silly. You could never draw too much. She held her mom’s smooth brown hand and gazed around the lobby instead of listening. Other people stood in impatient lines, just as bored as she was. Wait… Two weren’t.

A short man with reddish curls and a plump woman with much redder, straighter hair were alert. They seemed to be expecting something…

“ _NOBODY MOVE_! This is a robbery!”

The front doors burst open, and four people with guns stormed in. The two that Mary had been watching pulled out weapons too, and suddenly she was face-down on the floor along with everyone else. Her mother shielded her by reflex – but Mary had seen something, and squirmed out from under Angelica’s fearful body.

“All right, assholes, you know the drill…”

Mary was vaguely aware of the stocky man, the pretty black lady, and the tattooed mustache guy keeping most of the crowd on the ground, but she only had eyes for the fourth invader. He was tall. He wore a blue-and-black leather jacket. And covering his whole head was a very familiar black skull mask.

“ _Maria_! Get back here!”

Her mother’s desperate whisper fell on deaf ears. Mary stood, her frail brown body towering over the field of prostrate people. She made a beeline for the man in the mask, utterly uncaring of the danger. The frantic movements of the thieves gradually slowed as one by one they noticed her, until the skull’s eyes fell upon her at last.

She marched directly up to him and wrapped her arms around his leg, closing her eyes and pressing her face against the warm denim of his jeans. They smelled like blood and safety.

“Um. Hi?”

Yeah, it was him. Even pitched high with surprise, she’d know that voice anywhere. She focused on it, tuning out the renewed activity as the one with the mustache started yelling again.

“Hey, kid, can you let go of me? I promise not to hurt you, but I’m kinda busy here.”

She looked up, still clinging to his leg. This close, she could see the blue behind those empty eye sockets. There was confusion in them… but warmth, too.

“No,” she said stubbornly. “I wanna go with you.”

Confusion turned to bafflement. The man hesitated for a moment, then lowered his gun and shifted to take a knee on the floor. Mary released her grip to let him move, but immediately latched on to his arm as soon as it was in range.

“Why aren’t you scared of me?” he asked curiously.

“’Cuz you beat up my dad,” she said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “ _Nobody_ can do that. But you did.”

The skull-head tilted slightly, and the eyes underneath narrowed.

“And… that was a good thing?”

“Duh.” Mary looked at him like _he_ was the child in the equation. “He beats me up, but _you_ beat _him_ up. You’re better.”

The man’s eyes instantly went cold with fury, and the deep, hard voice from that night came back. “Your father… hurts you?”

“Yeah. Can mommy come with you too?”

She pointed to where Angelica lay, staring in terror as her daughter made nice with a deadly criminal. The skull man looked up, then back down at Mary, who was still attached to his arm.

“Yes. But you have to do exactly what I tell you until we get out of here, okay?”

“Okay!”

“Good. I’m going to pick you up now. Hold still.”

Mary allowed herself to be gently tossed over the man’s shoulder. Facing backwards, she could clearly see the mustache man and the rage on his face.

“Dammit, Ryan, it’s a heist, not a kidnapping! Put her down!” he yelled. The man carrying her – Ryan, apparently – ignored the order, growling one of his own instead.

“You. Mommy. Get over here, nice and easy.”

Mary couldn’t see, but she felt Angelica’s presence. Ryan turned around, keeping the older woman in front of him, and began to move towards the door. On the way, he stopped to talk to his boss.

“What the fuck are you doing, Haywood? You’re gonna screw us-”

“I got it under control. Gavin killed the alarms, right? No cops for a while, and Jack’s got the chopper on the roof. You’ll be gone easy. I’ll meet up with you later and explain.”

“You better. Don’t get your dumb ass killed, idiot… Fuckin’ _hostages_ …”

Mary was too excited to notice much after that, not even Ryan harshly cutting off Angelica’s terrified questions. The next thing she knew, she was in her mother’s lap in the passenger’s seat of a very fast car, farther from home than she’d ever been. It was an incredible, joyous feeling, like how you were supposed to feel in church. Like flying.

When the city was behind them and the desert stretched ahead, Ryan took off his mask. As it peeled back from his head it revealed a face that was far kinder than anything Mary had imagined. Even the black paint smeared around his eyes wasn’t enough to hide the affection in them when he glanced her way.

“Sorry about all that, ma’am, but a little bird told me you’ve been living with somebody way worse than me. I’m Ryan. And you’re safe now.”

Mary believed him instantly. How could she not, after what she’d seen? But her mother still trembled, so she explained.

“Ryan beat up daddy,” she said matter-of-factly. “He can beat up _anyone_. He won’t hurt us, though. He said.”

Ryan, still watching the road, nodded. “I know you don’t trust me, and I wouldn’t either if I were you, but you’ll have to for a couple of days at least. It’ll take me that long to find you a new place, or convince Geoff to give you one of ours.”

“Wh… where are we going, then?” Angelica asked in a voice like an aspen leaf.

“A safehouse. It’s not great for a kid, but I gotta lay low too. Nobody will find you there.”

Mary knew that the phrase should have been scary in this situation, but the way he said it was reassuring, because he didn’t mean “nobody at all.”

He meant _dad_.

As far as Mary was concerned, the safehouse was _fantastic_ for a kid. There was plenty of food, and lots of soda, and a whole entire _room_ full of guns and knives and things she didn’t know the names of but were clearly dangerous. Ryan initially shooed her away, but a couple hours later offered to teach both her and her mother how to use small arms for defense. Angelica shrank from it at first, but Mary took to it like a fish to water.

Though Ryan looked nearly harmless once he’d cleaned up and put on a t-shirt, it was glaringly obvious how experienced he was with the tools of pain and death. Once he’d drilled the rules of safety into both women’s heads, he showed them his weapons with the thoroughness, precision, and speed of a consummate professional. Above all, though, he was patient, and let each of them learn at their own pace. Once the initial fear had faded, that turned out to be impressively fast.

The first afternoon, he taught them to recognize, name, and clean three kinds of revolver and four types of combat knives. By the third day Angelica could shoot four out of ten soda cans off the fence with a 9-mil, and didn’t flinch so much when Ryan entered the room. Mary, though too small to use a gun, had grown so attached to a little black switchblade that Ryan happily let her keep it. Her mother didn’t seem worried at all – in fact, a grim satisfaction touched her face as she watched Mary practice.

Both women grew tense again on Thursday, because there was a dangerous quiet about Ryan that was all too familiar. He didn’t direct it at them, but it lingered in the air, feeling like cheap beer and imminent violence. They shrank into themselves by instinct, but Ryan responded by giving them their space. Until sunset.

Mary was carving patterns on the floor when their host emerged from his room in his battle gear. The paint around his eyes was fresh, and he held his mask at his side for the moment. Angelica cringed; her daughter smiled.

“I’m going to meet with… _him_.” Ooh, his voice was all deep and icy again! Mary got happy chills. “He won’t be leaving the drop-off point alive. Any requests?”

The way he said it was so casual, so off-the-cuff, that he may as well have been asking if they wanted anything from the supermarket. Angelica sat stunned, mouth agape until she regained control of it.

“Y… you’re going to kill him?”

“I mean. Yeah?” Ryan cocked his head to the side. “Should I not?”

“Do it, do it!” Mary cried, suddenly frothing with excitement. “Break a bottle on him an’ kick him a lot an’ I wanna watch!”

“Woah there, kiddo, slow down…” He shifted as she ran to him, making sure she couldn’t reach the machine gun slung across his back. “I can’t take you with me, you’d get hurt.”

“That’s okay, I’ve got hurt before!” she chirped.

Ryan didn’t seem to understand. He knelt in front of her and looked her in the eye with an odd expression. It was angry and sad and… loving? all at the same time.

“No,” he told her quietly. “That’s what this is about. You’re not getting hurt again.”

She opened her mouth to argue, but her mother pulled her away. Angelica’s grip was firm, but her hand was trembling.

“If you’re for real…” she said, wary as Ryan rose to his feet. “If… if you do this… Prove it. Prove it to me, show me he’s gone, that he can’t… that he won’t…” The shaking increased, and her voice broke with tears of hope. Ryan nodded solemnly.

“Sure thing. I’ll be back soon.”

He closed the door behind him gently. Mary pouted.

She spent the next few hours in her mother’s arms, half-listening to the whispered Spanish that painted pictures of kings and fairies and tortillas raining from the sky. Those old stories usually helped her drift off to sleep, but tonight she could barely keep still. The sound of an approaching engine had her bounding off the couch before Angelica could react.

“He’s here he’s here he’s here!” she chanted, dancing eagerly at the door. It nearly hit her when it opened.

Ryan didn’t come in, though. He stood on the porch, a little sweatier – and a little bloodier – than when they’d last seen him. Mary saw the tight smile on his lips, but couldn’t find it in his eyes. He didn’t say anything. He just looked at her mother, and nodded.

Angelica nervously stepped out of the house for the first time in almost a week. Ryan’s zippy car was pulled up within the porch light’s reach, trunk towards the door. He glanced at the pair of them, and opened it.

“Mama, I can’t _see_!” Mary jumped up and down, but could only glimpse the edge of a blue tarp past the bumper. She reached out to climb it, expecting a restraining hand; but her mother seemed frozen, covering her mouth, unable to move. Even without the extra hindrance, though, Mary couldn’t quite pull herself up.

“Want a boost?”

She looked up at Ryan and raised her arms expectantly. He lifted her with an expert hold, resting her effortlessly on his hip. The position gave her the view she’d been begging for, and for the first time since their adventure had started, she went perfectly still.

Her father was curled on his side in a tacky pool of blood. It was hard to tell in the shadows, but his usually pale face was a swollen mass of purple, and the skin had torn open where Ryan’s boots had landed. There were rips in his shirt, and some of his fingers were bent all crooked. And as the cherry on top, the entire back of his skull was caved in.

There was no doubt about it. He was dead.

Mary felt cold. She wanted to laugh, but it was hard to breathe; the satisfaction at the top of the stairs was a ghost of the joyful, sickening anger that clutched at her throat now. She turned from the awful sight and buried her face in the crook of Ryan’s neck. Their skin grew hot with tears.

Ryan held her until Angelica came back to herself, and then he held both of them, standing there in the night with an arm around each. Mary heard her mother’s prayers, choked out in a thick, unintelligible mixture of Spanish and English, but couldn’t say any of her own. She didn’t know if they should be in thanks or mourning.

* * *

 

Mary’s seventh birthday was the best she’d ever had. Uncle Ryan brought her a box of art supplies so big she could almost crawl inside it! His friends from the bank all gave her presents, too, but Ryan’s was her favorite. Except maybe Jack’s, which was a huge chocolate cake spiced with cinnamon and chile. It rested in the kitchen while Ryan and the rest of his crew played tag with her in the backyard. Jack and Geoff, who she still thought of as the mustache man, remained inside to guard dessert and talk with her mother.

Angelica still moved carefully, still spoke quietly, but she held herself differently these days. Mary knew that part of it had to do with the little gun she now carried at all times, but it was mostly freedom. Their new house, their new protectors, and the absence of Chris in their lives had worked miracles. Mary was sleeping better, and learning that making noise or asking for things no longer resulted in pain. She could even have friends from school come visit – well, she had to make some first, but she was getting there. Sam from art class was nice, at least.

“Haha, gotcha!” Ryan swept her up from behind and swung her around, grinning. She only flinched a little before starting to laugh.

“Again, again!”

“You gotta help me catch the others first,” he chided. “Think you can get Mica if I go for Gavin?”

“Yeah!”

She ran off, giggling, and the only bruises she had at the end of the day were on her grass-stained knees.


	2. Word of God epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Because let’s be honest here: Mary's awesome, but the chances of me officially continuing the Guardian Devil AU are slim. So here's What Happens Next, by Word of God. CW for a brief rape mention (doesn't happen to her, though!)

She’s been through a lot of years of abuse, and that doesn’t just go away overnight. She’s got nightmares and attention problems. Sometimes she’s loud and uncontrollable; sometimes she goes silent, shrinking into herself and not coming out. All this means she doesn’t do too well in school. She’s been sent to the counselor a lot, but never says much. Even the few friends she’s made don’t know what her life used to be.

For years, the only people she opens up to are the members of the Fake AH Crew. Ryan’s like a stepfather, of course, but she’s also bonded with Mica, Jeremy, and Ray. They’ll take turns picking her up from school, and she’ll hang out at one or another of the Crew’s apartments until her mom gets off from work. Whoever’s babysitting that day teaches her something new about how to survive in Los Santos: where to kick or bite if somebody grabs her; how to keep from being followed; and how to use a gun, when she’s old enough. She’s decent with a 9-mil, but she likes knives better.

The other thing she practices a lot is her art. She’s good. Really good. Drawing was her one outlet for as long as she’s been able to hold a marker, and it shows. Her teachers are always impressed at first, and then disturbed when they learn what her pictures mean. There are more visits to the counselor, more concerned letters to her mother. Angelica just shakes her head over them. She’s known for a long time now that Mary isn’t going to fit in.

Mary drops out of high school at sixteen despite her razor-sharp mind. Although the Crew has tried to protect her from their underworld, and has only taught her what she’d need for self-defense, she’s been digging into the darkness anyway. She’s crept out of the house on many occasions to prowl the streets at night, absently flicking her switchblade open and shut, watching drug deals and muggings and learning everything there is to know about petty crime.

At eighteen she makes her first kill. When she sees a man drag a young woman into an alley and start tearing at her clothes, it’s nearly automatic. The smell of blood from his slit throat stirs memories from when she was very young, and she falls in love with it instantly.

Although they’re her family, she never joins the Fake AH Crew. She works better alone… but is it really work, if she doesn’t get paid for it? She doesn’t charge for her services, or even loot her victims; she makes enough money off her art to support whatever lifestyle she wants. She’s sold pieces to big-time celebrities, attended fancy gallery openings, even been featured on an international TV network. The world knows her as a rising star, the hopeful new face of a city too long torn by violence.

But on the streets of that city, she’s somebody else. She’s got fury in her heart, vengeance in her eyes, the blood of rapists and abusers on her hands. She’s got a little black switchblade and an army of fiercely loyal women who’ve given her another name:

Santa Maria.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Other trivia:
> 
> Her last name is Gutiérrez. It used to be Kingston, but when Chris died Angelica had it changed back to her maiden name.
> 
> She's half-Mexican, and can understand Spanish but not speak it very well.
> 
> She's one of two other people in the world Ray will let touch his sniper rifle (Jack's the other).
> 
> Her favorite color is the dark orange of ripe persimmons.
> 
> She's, like, five feet tall.
> 
> ....I accidentally Batman, goddammit.


End file.
